Tropical Bank MD, Sameh M. Krekshi – in a new twist has been sacked the Bank’s board on the orders of Bank of Uganda (FILE PHOTO)

KAMPALA – The Board of Tropical Bank, Uganda has summarily sacked the Managing Director, Sameh M. Krekshi on the orders of Bank of Uganda.

Board Chairman Gerald Ssendaula, in an October 1 termination letter said Mr Krekshi had overdrawn his account contrary to the central bank regulations.

“It is within your knowledge that during the on-site examination of Tropical Bank Ltd for the year 2017, Bank of Uganda established that your account was continuously overdrawn,” Mr Ssendaula wrote.

“The Central Bank recently conducted a follow-up examination and established that the anomaly was never rectified as the overdrawn position was only regularized as recently as 12th September 2018, three months after the same was highlighted to the Board of directors,” the termination letter reads in part.

It adds: “This, therefore, serves to notify you of Bank of Uganda’s directive contained in their letter EDS.112.100 dated 27th September 2018 to immediately terminate you from the services of Tropical Bank Ltd. You have henceforth requested to handover office and all the Bank’s property in your possession or under your control to the Executive Director, Mr Dennis Kakeeto.”

Industry sources have indicated that there’s a group of people within the Bank that are eying US$ 7million lying on one of the accounts for Libyan shares, a thing that has left top officials of the bank divided.

Mr. Kreshi was General Manager at Tropical Bank since 2015, during which period he particularly spearheaded the transformational thrust of the bank’s corporate drive as an institution which resulted in its ‘now famous and visible 2016 -2020 Strategic Vision.’

“He is a visionary, action-oriented and hands-on Leader, with over 20 years’ experience in; Treasury Operations; Trade Finance; Investment and Portfolio Management; International relations and Marketing; General bank Operations among others,” his profile reads.

Tropical Bank is one of the loss-making banks in Uganda. The bank made a loss of Shs5.5bn in 2017, down from a loss Shs13.4bn in 2016.

The bank has been suffering from high Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) for some years.

Its NPLs reduced to Shs28.7bn in 2017, down from Shs38.27bn in 2016, while bad loans written off increased to Shs12.06bn in 2017 from Shs11.79bn in 2016.